


Keeping Distance

by hopelessbookgeek



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: But quietly, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, They're not TOGETHER they're just. Lowkey in love anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 21:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10422345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/pseuds/hopelessbookgeek
Summary: York breaks his leg and is stuck in the infirmary. Carolina tries to keep his spirits up.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/gifts).



> GOD this is so LAME

He was sitting up in bed when she went to visit, so that was good news.

“Well, _hey_ , Carolina,” he said with a smile. Sounded like the drugs had mostly worn off since he’d gotten out of surgery. Key word, _mostly_.

“How are you doing? You were in bad shape yesterday.” She let a sly smile curl the side of her mouth. “North said you cried when I had to go train.”

“What! I’ll have you know I’ve never once cried, about anything, ever.” He returned her smile, but a little more genuinely and a little more tiredly. “I’m okay. My left side is bad luck, I guess. C’mere, sit with me. I’ve been stuck with D for company all day and he’s no fun.”

Delta’s little green figure popped up on York’s shoulder. “ _I apologize if my company is unwelcome. If you’d prefer I didn’t bother you, I can also halt administration of your pain medication_.”

“Oh, D, you know I’m just messin’ with you. You can go back to running probabilities, I’ll let Carolina keep me company from here.” Delta disappeared and Carolina sat on the edge of his bed. He drew his right knee up so she had more room.

“You’re not in so much pain, though, right? Yesterday you were barely coherent.”

He waved her concern away. “I’m a bundle of laughs, don’t worry. Delta’s keeping my meds up so I’ve been asleep, mostly. They estimate it shouldn’t be too long before I can get up and start walking again.”

“Okay… don’t rush it, though. If you get up too soon you’ll just break it again.”

“I’ve seen you break a hand, wear a splint for two days, and then take it off only to immediately break it again.”

“Well, don’t be like me.”

He said nothing for a moment, and they both let the sentiment hang out in the air. Carolina immediately wished she could take it back even without really knowing why. Maybe it was too raw, too open, too honest.

“Oh, I get it,” he said finally, and there was laughter at the back of his throat that she felt infinitely grateful for. “Dumb decisions are only for the ladies who top the leaderboard. We humble men have to do what you say.”

“Yes,” she said immediately. “I’m your CO. I’m not above ordering you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He dropped his gaze like he was humbled, but she could tell he was trying not to smile. “D’you wanna sign my cast? North and Wyoming have already done it.”

“Yeah, alright. Do you have a marker?” He rifled through the top drawer of his bedside table and came up with a Sharpie to hand her. She got up so he could draw back the covers from his left leg, thick with a plaster cast. “Let me guess. North was the one who draw the sweet dragon on your thigh, and Wyoming was the one who wrote ‘I’m a huge dummy’ on the outside of your calf.”

“Wrong and wrong.”

“Hm.” She peered at the empty space under North’s scribbled insults and pretended to be reading something. “Looks like someone also wrote… ‘my ass isn’t as nice as I think it is’.”

“ _What?_ ” He jerked his body over to try and see what she was seeing and had to wince when it jostled his leg. “Who wrote that? Carolina, who wrote that?”

“No one, I’m just messing with you. Relax. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“Okay. Okay, good.” He sat back, visibly relieved. “My butt is plenty nice.”

“Good to know that whoever broke your leg didn’t break your ego.” She considered all the places she could write something.

“There’s always the inside of my thigh,” he suggested. “I told the others to leave the space open there for you.”

“Okay, sure.” She drew an arrow pointing to his crotch and wrote ‘hazardous materials, keep distance’. “How’s that?”

He had to crane his head to read it but frowned when he did. “That’s rude! You wrote something rude!”

She had to laugh at that, and bent over to write her name in her best cursive. “There. Is that better?”

“Yes. Thank you.” He closed his eyes. “Man, I’m tired.”

“Sleep, then. You need it.” She moved to get up, but his hand snuck out to grab her wrist.

“You’ll come back, right?” he asked. His eyes were still but his head tilted in her direction.

“Of course I’ll come back.”

***

She visited for a few minutes every day, always too busy to stay much longer than that. After about a week he was thoroughly sick of the food they sent to the med bay and insisted that to reveal the location of his secret stash of snacks would defeat the purpose of it being a secret. He didn’t mean it to be a request, just a casual complaint, but she went to Pilot 479er anyway and made a requisition.

“I brought chicken soup,” she announced when she came into the room. He brightened when he saw her, like he always did.

"Aw, Carolina! Thank you!”

She handed him the bowl. “I don’t actually think it’s chicken,” she admitted. “Niner got what she could.”

“Oh, that’s okay.” He pushed at the soup with his spoon. It was a lot thicker than it should have been, and seemed to push back. “I only… do you happen to have a fork? I think this might need a fork.”

“God, I’m sorry.”

“No, no! I, uh…” He took a bite of it somewhat warily, but swallowed it just fine. “It’s actually pretty good.”

“Doing any better today, do you think?”

“Yeah… yeah, I think so.” He set the bowl on the bedside table and adjusted his position. He tried not to wince but she saw it anyway. “Delta cut my pain meds way back. Says he doesn’t want me getting addicted.”

“Well, he would know.”

“No, I know. He’s right. It just…” He groaned. “It hurts like heck.”

“Heck.” She rolled the word around in her mouth. “You can say hell, you know. This is the army.”

“I know,” he said defensively. “I can swear. Look. Piss… hell.”

“Piss hell,” she repeated with a laugh. “Is that where we go when we die?”

He laughed back. Even with a broken leg and minimal medication and a cast that was more a collage of insults and badly-drawn penises than anything else, even when she’d seen him with a busted eye, a concussion, down in the trenches with death at his back, York always managed to find a laugh somewhere deep inside him, whether he had to fake it or not. She didn’t think this one was fake. Somehow that meant something. “God, I hope not.”

They sat in silence for a bit. It wasn’t awkward, just… comfortable. That was always something to be said of York. He was comfortable. “Hey,” she said softly, “I’d better get going. South challenged North to sparring with paint and I’m very curious as to how it’ll go down.”

“Well, hey, I wanna go.”

“You’re busted up. You can’t do.”

“Yes I can,” he said stubbornly. “I won’t put any weight on my leg and I’ll come right back here after. You can chaperone me. I won’t get into any trouble.”

“Well, alright… I don’t see any crutches or anything, though, you’ll have to put your weight on me.” She helped him up, his arm around her shoulder, all his weight on his right leg. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but they could hobble along like it alright. “Oof. You’re heavy.”

“You’re warm,” he said in response. “Hey, Carolina?”

“Yeah, York?”

“Thanks for this. I mean it.”

“It’s no problem. It’s what any good CO would do for her men.” She shook her head, amended herself. “It’s what any good friend would do.” That made him smile. “I’ll always have your back, you know that?”

“I know,” he said. “Of course I know that. And you’ll always have mine?”

He made it a question, like even now, after a hundred successful missions, after she’d argued for him to heal longer after his eye, after movie nights and training sessions, he still didn’t presume on her friendship, on her closeness. She could have lo– she appreciated that in him. “Of course,” she said. “Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh I've never written Yorkalina before so sorry if it sucks!


End file.
